First rule of magic: always be the smartest person in the room.

(SPOILERS) These days, the arrival of a summer movie that is
neither a sequel nor a superhero outing is rare. And one that requires its
audience to do a bit of thinking is even less common. Any film that promises both these ingredients is to be seized gratefully, making the
ineptitude of Now You See Me doubly
disappointing.

The premise is an alluring one; four stage magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco) pull off robberies in public. They announce themselves as the culprits during live shows, but the authorities can neither place them at the scene nor prove their guilt. A grand conceit, and one that sets fairly high expectations if it is to be played out to any degree of satisfaction.

I was on board for this at least being fun, but Louis Leterrier’s movie lets you down on every level. The
only clever bit of misdirection was right there at the booking office; the
advertising persuaded me into an unwarranted trip to the cinema.

The filmmakers are set on imitating the pomp of the big Las
Vegas magic shows, but they fail to apply themselves to the kernel of these
acts; the tricks themselves. The heists, despite their CGI-sheen, are weary old
illusions. Anyone unaware of the key tools of the stage magician’s trade, or
who has never encountered a locked room mystery, might feasibly be intrigued by
the feats this quartet pull off, but the director isn’t banking on it. The
explanation for each illusion is raced through as if it is of incidental value
to the main plot rather than something to be savoured. And, since magic tricks buster
Morgan Freeman is doing the explaining, we’re in the curious realm of
theory-in-progress rather than proven fact. It’s tantamount to Hercule Poirot
giving the murderer’s name but not bothering to draw out the minutiae of how he
reached that conclusion.

Leterrier and his (three) writers clearly want us to be
impressed with the repetitive sleights of (often CGI) hand. But drawing
attention to the fact that the theme of the movie is misdirection doesn't give
the arbitrary twists any added cachet. Every good whodunit features red
herrings; the trick is not only to keep the audience guessing but also to
ensure that the final reveal is satisfying and apparently consistent.

Most mystery plots of this ilk have a house of cards structure;
if you look too closely at the construction it’s often found to be structurally
unsound. If you’re doing a good job, this occurs only in retrospect. If the
audience is aware of the failings in each scene, you’re doing something very
wrong. In Now You See Me, the precision timing required for events to play out
as they do, combined with the uncontrollable variables at work, destroys any
suspension of disbelief. The carnage of the freeway chase is the most glaring
of these; unless every car on that stretch of road was equipped with a stunt
driver the chances of serious injury or fatality would be enormous. We’ve seen
this before, in David Fincher’s The Game,
but that film’s lack of credibility is peanuts compared to this.

Now You See Me is
only faux-clever, off-puttingly pleased with itself (never a good idea) and as
smug in execution as its less-than-dazzling tricksters. Leterrier shoots the
movie as if he’s letting us witness a Vegas show, and the effect is not
dissimilar to watching a sitcom with a soundtrack of canned laughter. The rapt
audiences at The Four Horseman gigs, gasping and wowing, makes us all the more
aware of how underwhelming the experience is. It's like watching footage of a
rave rather than being there.

Stylistically, the movie is a disaster. Leterrier can't keep
his damn camera still, constantly cutting on movement and swirling 360 degrees
around his magicians to reveal their sheer awesomeness. He treats the entire picture as a triumphant peak moment, and doesn’t appear to realise how wearying that
is. If the script were any better he’d have been the wrong man for the job. As
it stands, he just exacerbates its core problems, treating what ought to be a
brain-teasing puzzler like an action movie (a genre that is his natural home; Transporter 2 is surprisingly hyperbolic
fun). One might argue he's attempting to distract us from how shallow and
nonsensical the plot is, but if that’s the case he fails abysmally. And, given
his past efforts (Clash of the Titans,
The Incredible Hulk), I doubt that’s
the case. I’m sure he genuinely believes this is a cerebral feast. Brian
Tyler's score only serves to underline the inability of its director to show
any restraint. It’s ever-present, attempting to stoke wonderment but fast becoming
an irritant.

The irony of a film like this is that it asks you to
question what you see but only to the extent that you don't breach its flimsy internal
logic. How would the magicians, having announced their intent, remain at large?
Even given that their benefactor might potentially pull some strings shouldn't
they be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit a felony? When they give away backer
Michael Caine’s money, are the writers just wilfully ignoring that the bank
would have to return these unauthorised payments to him? Or are they just
ignorant? Did the police really not check below the stage (after the first
heist) until Morgan Freeman arrived to imbue wisdom? And when Freeman is
imprisoned at the end, are we supposed to believe that his
ridiculously-stuffed-with-cash car held up in court as the only and decisive
evidence against him? Not to mention that he seems to be the sole inmate in the
most squalid of prisons (I half expected a reveal that this was another
fake-out but it never comes).

The dogged ineptitude of the Mark Ruffalo’s detective is the only aspect of his reveal as mastermind that remotely legitimises the vastly over-used trope of stacking your narrative on top of the least likely character twist. Yes, I know, it’s all about the misdirection. But the tale of the card in the tree in no way silences doubts about the converge of circumstances necessary for Ruffalo’s elaborate scheme to succeed.

There’s also a very real problem with audience
identification. We don’t care for the obnoxious magic act (who, in any case, we
are distanced from after the first 20 minutes) because they’re so obnoxious. We don’t root for the cops because they’re so inept (even excusing
Ruffalo, their complete lack of ability is plain ludicrous). We’re looking for
someone else to connect with, but Morgan Freeman’s smugly all-knowing trade
secrets buster is too tangential to fit the bill. It’s not essential to include
audience identification, of course. That is, as long as the plot engages. Which it does
not. So, long before we discover why who did what and how, we've lost interest.

Further rubbing salt in the wound, the epilogue finds
Ruffalo and Interpol agent Melanie Laurent sitting on a French bench as he
explains his unlikely backstory. Going back to the Freeman’s reveal of the
magic tricks, if there was any conviction about this character we’d be invited
to marvel as Leterrier traces the visual narrative of his life to the point
where he fulfils his quest for revenge. As there’s no sympathy for Ruffalo, he
comes across as dispenser of disproportionate justice (in Freeman’s case at any
rate, even given that 99% of the Magic Circle would be pissed at him). I presume there
were deleted scenes, as Ruffalo’s dad is played by Elias Koteas in the
newspaper photographs, but I doubt they’d make the plot any more digestible.

Any other character could quite easily have been slotted in as mastermind; Ruffalo’s only distinction is that suspicion hasn’t been cast his way (unlike Freeman and Laurent). Indeed, Leterrier goes to the opposite extreme. He cheats with scenes such as Ruffalo getting drunk, depressed about how the case is going, just for the benefit of the audience. Ruffalo’s a fine actor (he’d be the perfect Columbo in an inevitable big screen version), and I guess he was attracted to part for the leading man credit in a reasonably high profile movie, but his generally good taste in roles has deserted him this time (Freeman and Caine will show up in any old tat).

Speaking of Caine, he’s back in familiar cash-the-cheque
mode. Perhaps it's divine justice that he has to struggle through some
shockingly laboured scenes with the fraudulent foursome. Eisenberg’s attempts
to “mentalise” Caine is painful to watch. There’s no chemistry; they all just want
to get off the set.

The characters of the magicians are oblique at best. The
opening scenes suggest we'll be along for the ride with them, and do a
reasonable job of setting up their skill sets. And probably the best sequence
in the film is their police interrogation following the bank heist, showing off
why they are good at what they do (even that loses something when you realise
Ruffalo was in on it). But they quickly take a back seat to the police
investigation; the need to obscure the mechanics of their scheme is clearly the
reasoning for this, yet other films have managed to etch out strong characters and avoid reveals (The Prestige, to name but one). When we occasionally cut back to
them, to be informed of their motivation and that they are in the dark about
their master’s identity, there seems to be an assumption that their fates
matter. Why should we be invested in them? At the very least, Harrelson and
Franco are unscrupulous in their former trades. At worst, outright immoral. Are
we supposed to cheer their ultimate reward?

More damningly, Harrelson’s is the only one with an iota of
charm. Eisenberg is playing another irritating little shit; Mark Zuckberg again,
or maybe he’s just being himself? Fisher twirls through the air within a CGI
bubble, which is as much weight as she brings to her role. And Franco
continually cracks the most punchable grin in the history of Hollywood. If you
thought his big brother was an infernal nuisance to cinema, prepare to discover
that it runs in the family. I hoped against hope that his character actually had perished during the freeway scene.

The writers probably should have been a warning sign. It’s Edward Ricourt’s first credit, but Boaz Yakin is a master of mediocrity (The Rookie, sequels to From Dusk Till Dawn and Dirty Dancing, Prince of Persia). Ed Solomon hasn’t impressed anyone since his Bill and Ted days. Accordingly, there are committee-led subplots in abundance.Ruffalo and Laurent's romance comes out of the
blue (we’re supposed to believe she’s attracted to this sociopath who has done
nothing but undermine her?) Poor Laurent is consigned to a miserable role. If
she isn’t required to ramble incoherently about faith she’s shouting at
Ruffalo, repeatedly demanding that he “never speak to her like that again”.

The magicians are motivated by the promise of membership of
a magical secret society, the ultimate accolade for those who have perfected
their art. But The Eye is so vague that it seems like an afterthought. Throwing
in odds and sods of occult paraphernalia do nothing to nourish the idea. You
can see why it’s there; mysterious ancient sects lend a bit of mythic weight. But
even the lamest of movies have managed something a bit more inspired (Robert
Langdon’s escapades, Wanted). The Tarot cards presented to the foursome are
presumably picked for symbolic reasons, but they don’t invite further
interpretation. And the bombastic moniker “The
Four Horseman” is an end in itself. Most laughable is their induction into
The Eye; their Tarot cards merge into one via yet more CGI wizardry. Then,
every bit as amazed as we aren’t, they are ushered onto an anti-climactic
psychedelic merry-go-round.

Perversely,
the only upside to Now You See Me may
be its sleeper success. In an age of safe bets on aforementioned known properties,
it might encourage studios to take a few chances. But I wouldn’t bet on it. And, if
original fare is produced, there’s
still the obstacle of making it halfway decent.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Other Apps

Labels

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vampire Academy (2014) My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on
the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct
Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire
Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if
you added vampires to Heathers, you
would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately
inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from
Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish
leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to
surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young
Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel
storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation
crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like,
hoping…

The Verdict (1982) (SPOILERS) Sidney Lumet’s return to the legal arena, with results every bit as compelling as 12 Angry Men a quarter of a century earlier. This time the focus is on the lawyer, in the form of Paul Newman’s washed-up ambulance chaser Frank Galvin, given a case that finally matters to him. In less capable hands, The Verdict could easily have resorted to a punch-the-air piece of Hollywood cheese, but, thanks to Lumet’s earthy instincts and a sharp, unsentimental screenplay from David Mamet, this redemption tale is one of the genre’s very best.

And it could easily have been otherwise. The Verdict went through several line-ups of writer, director and lead, before reverting to Mamet’s original screenplay. There was Arthur Hiller, who didn’t like the script. Robert Redford, who didn’t like the subsequent Jay Presson Allen script and brought in James Bridges (Redford didn’t like that either). Finally, the producers got the hump with the luxuriantly golden-haired star for meetin…

Darkest Hour (2017)
(SPOILERS) Watching Joe Wright’s return to the rarefied
plane of prestige – and heritage to boot – filmmaking following the execrable
folly of the panned Pan, I was struck
by the difference an engaged director, one who cares about his characters,
makes to material. Only last week, Ridley Scott’s serviceable All the Money in the World made for a pointed
illustration of strong material in the hands of someone with no such
investment, unless they’re androids. Wright’s dedication to a relatable Winston
Churchill ensures that, for the first hour-plus, Darkest Hour is a first-rate affair, a piece of myth-making that barely
puts a foot wrong. It has that much in common with Wright’s earlier Word War II
tale, Atonement. But then, like Atonement, it comes unstuck.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) (SPOILERS) The cliffhanger sequel, as a phenomenon, is a relatively recent thing. Sure, we kind of saw it with The Empire Strikes Back – one of those "old" movies Peter Parker is so fond of – a consequence of George Lucas deliberately borrowing from the Republic serials of old, but he had no guarantee of being able to complete his trilogy; it was really Back to the Future that began the trend, and promptly drew a line under it for another decade. In more recent years, really starting with The Matrix – The Lord of the Rings stands apart as, post-Weinstein's involvement, fashioned that way from the ground up – shooting the second and third instalments back-to-back has become a thing, both more cost effective and ensuring audiences don’t have to endure an interminable wait for their anticipation to be sated. The flipside of not taking this path is an Allegiant, where greed gets the better of a studio (split a novel into two movie parts assuming a…

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) (SPOILERS) The belated arrival of the Ant-Man sequel on UK shores may have been legitimately down to World Cup programming, but it nevertheless adds to the sense that this is the inessential little sibling of the MCU, not really expected to challenge the grosses of a Doctor Strange, let alone the gargantuan takes of its two predecessors this year. Empire magazine ran with this diminution, expressing disappointment that it was "comparatively minor and light-hitting" and "lacks the scale and ambition of recent Marvel entries". Far from deficits, for my money these should be regard as accolades bestowed upon Ant-Man and the Wasp; it understands exactly the zone its operating in, yielding greater dividends than the three most recent prior Marvel entries the review cites in its efforts at point scoring.

The Avengers 5.12: The Superlative Seven I’ve always rather liked this one, basic as it is in premise. If the title consciously evokes The Magnificent Seven, to flippant effect, the content is Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but played out with titans of their respective crafts – including John Steed, naturally – encountering diminishing returns. It also boasts a cast of soon-to-be-famous types (Charlotte Rampling, Brian Blessed, Donald Sutherland), and the return of one John Hollis (2.16: Warlock, 4.7: The Cybernauts). Kanwitch ROCKS!

The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
(SPOILERS) I suspect, if I hadn’t been ignorant of the story of Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee selling secrets to the Soviets during the ‘70s, I’d have found The Falcon and the Snowman less engaging than I did. Which is to say that John Schlesinger’s film has all the right ingredients to be riveting, including a particularly camera-hogging performance from Sean Penn (as Lee), but it’s curiously lacking in narrative drive. Only fitfully does it channel the motives of its protagonists and their ensuing paranoia. As such, the movie makes a decent primer on the case, but I ended up wondering if it might not be ideal fodder for retelling as a miniseries.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) Along with Pain &
Gain and The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street might be viewed
as the completion of a loose 2013 trilogy on the subject of success and excess;
the American Dream gone awry. It’s the superior picture to its fellows, by
turns enthralling, absurd, outrageous and hilarious. This is the fieriest, most
deliriously vibrant picture from the director since the millennium turned.
Nevertheless, stood in the company of Goodfellas,
the Martin Scorsese film from which The
Wolf of Wall Street consciously takes many of its cues, it is found wanting.

I was vaguely familiar with the title, not because I knew
much about Jordan Belfort but because the script had been in development for such
a long time (Ridley Scott was attached at one time). So part of the pleasure of
the film is discovering how widely the story diverges from the Wall Street template. “The Wolf of Wall
Street” suggests one who towers over the city like a behemoth, rather than a
guy …

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age
of Ultron’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central
plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of)
its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow”
factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem
is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to
effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble
superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively
lean in comparison.

Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster
Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War, Infinity
Wars I & II, Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok. It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such
activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions (Iron Man II), but there are points in Age of Ultron where it becomes
distractingly so. …

The Avengers 5.11: Epic Epic has something of a Marmite reputation, and even as someone who rather likes it, I can quite see its flaws. A budget-conscious Brian Clemens was inspired to utilise readily-available Elstree sets, props and costumes, the results both pushing the show’s ever burgeoning self-reflexive agenda and providing a much more effective (and amusing) "Avengers girl ensnared by villains attempting to do for her" plot than The House That Jack Built, Don't Look Behind You and the subsequent The Joker. Where it falters is in being little more than a succession of skits and outfit changes for Peter Wyngarde. While that's very nearly enough, it needs that something extra to reach true greatness. Or epic-ness.